Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

Scott is about to go on vacation to Australia and he wants to know how iCloud works with the images on his iPad. Leo says that he can turn on iCloud Photo Library in his phone and it will upload his images when connected to Wi-Fi to save space on his phone. Can he upload from his Nikon with his iPad? Leo says he can shoot raw, but it may not go up to the cloud. They will upload high quality JPEGs. But Scott should be wary, because Nikon also adds a lower quality JPEG that it loads to the LCD for review. In many cases, the lower quality image will get copied instead. So he'll want to be sure he keeps the memory card. Think of them as rolls of film while he's on vacation.

Carlos has been trying to upgrade to Windows 10 on his Mac and it keeps asking for a CD instead of installing with the ISO. Leo says it may be a bad ISO. Boot Camp Assistant will automatically install it. Microsoft will also allow him to download a Windows 10 ISO and it will verify the ISO to be sure it's valid. He can also use this app to download any missing drivers (thanks to Beastmaster in the chatroom).

Audience QuestionsHour 2

BJ wants to know how the Motorola Moto X Pure stacks up against the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Leo says that the Moto X Pure has a nice screen and a great pure Google experience. The Galaxy S6 Edge has a much nicer screen, but he doesn't like Samsung's TouchWiz overlay. BJ also hates the Motorola tech support. Leo says that Samsung's isn't much better and both expect the carrier to support it.

Leo says that if the price is no issue, get the Samsung Galaxy Note V or the Galaxy S6. They are outstanding phones and he can always root it to get rid of TouchWiz. He doesn't really need the Edge screen either. 64GB is plenty of storage. If he really wants a pure Android experience, the Google Nexus 5X or 6P is the way to go.

Rene's hard drive was about to crash so she bought a new hard drive and reinstalled Windows. It's been updating, but today she's missing drivers and getting unknown device errors. She googled the driver error and Leo stopped her right there and said that Googling drivers is a dangerous thing to do because she could get a nefarious hacked driver. He recommends always going directly to the manufacturer for the latest drivers. Rene can go to Dell and look at the specific machine. Each one has a device number. She may be missing drivers from extra USB peripheral devices. Leo suggests unplugging all the unnecessary peripherals. Then go into Device Manager and remove drivers and devices with red X's by them. That signals Windows to upgrade the drivers. Absent all that, if the system is OK, it'll likely fix itself in time with a future update.

The warning of a crashed hard drive could also be a false positive. The so-called smart hard drives are often unreliable with those smart warnings. Leo recommends doing what the HAL9000 suggested in 2001 and put it back in and let it fail. Just back up regularly.

The chatroom also suggests running Dell's AutoUpdater Software. That'll give her all the drivers she needs. This is one of the reasons why Leo says getting a tablet or Chromebook is a better option for most people.

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Rose needs an inexpensive black and white wireless printer. Leo says she can get a black and white wireless printer for $50, but the cost of consumables (ink) is the true cost of the printer. Ink Jet printers are generally more expensive than laser printers on a per page basis. But Epson has lowered the cost of ink so that it costs about 1.3 cents per page. Another option is the Canon Pixma, costs 4.3 cents per page, and 2.8 cents for color. Epson also has a line of printers that come with the ink in the box. They have a long lasting line that has two years worth of ink included. Leo likes those, even if they're more expensive up front.

Greg wants to access his music from Amazon with his Echo. Leo says the Echo does support Amazon Prime Music, but that's a limited subset. His sense is that it wont, but it says that it will support Amazon music. He would have to upload his music to his Amazon Music library and then he'll need to have the right syntax to ask to play it. "Hey Echo, Play [Name of the Song]" and it should just play it. If he has them organized in folders, it could be problematic.

Greg wants to free up disc space in Windows. Leo says he can get rid of restore points, clear temp files, etc, but don't go after Hotfixes. Those are important. Greg should check out this article at hanselman.com.

David wants to install some security cameras, but he doesn't want to pay for a cable length he doesn't need. How can he do that? Leo suggests going with a wireless camera setup. If he wants to create cables, instead of buying cables that are too long or short, he can build his own with attachments and a few key tools. But wireless is the way to go and most cameras use that. Axis has good wired cameras. Nest cameras are good for wireless.

Peter wants to know how good the camera is in the Google Nexus 6. He's going on vacation and wants to take good pictures. Leo says that he's not thrilled with camera on the Nexus 6. Why not just bring a camera? He can get a great point and shoot, with zoom for a few hundred dollars. That will be the best for capturing those once in a lifetime memories. The Olympus TG-4 is an excellent option.

Carrie is having trouble turning off her Windows 10 computer. Leo says that Windows 10 is a little different. Carrie says the mouse won't click, though. Leo says that the mouse button may not be working and she should try another mouse. Or she should go into the mouse settings to see if the mouse buttons have been switched by accident.

From the chatroom, there seems to be a bug which causes this issue in Windows 10. Check out this article at home.bt.com.

This Week in Tech News

Tuesday is Apple's next event and Leo is expecting the latest iPhone 11 (or whatever it'll be named). After the announcement, users will be able to order it starting Friday, the 13th. Leo says that gone are the days where people would wait for a week in line to be the first to get it. Now they just go online at midnight and place their order.

Other expected announcements include another update to the Apple Watch. Rumor has it that Apple will be offering ceramic versions again, along with titanium models. But Leo says that the cheapest is just as good. it's what he gets.

Apple will also release its new Gaming service for $5 a month. And Apple TV+, which Leo says the already announced original series isn't anything to get excited about. At the end of the day, it'll be another $11 a month coming out of your bank account for maybe one or two shows. In the end, cord-cutting has become less of a bargain because you're simply paying just as much as with a cable subscription. Maybe even more.

The latest scam is to convince the phone company to transfer your mobile phone number to a new SIM. Cloud Hopper is the app that does this. Once that's accomplished, the bad guys can gain control of all your apps, including banking apps with 2 factor authentication through a SIMJACKED phone. That's what happened to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Leo says that what he recommends is contacting your mobile service and request they use a PIN to verify it's you when seeking to get a new SIM.

New phones are hitting the market starting right now. First out the gate was Samsung with the Galaxy Note10. But it's over $1100! Next up is the Google Pixel 4, probably coming in October. The iPhone 11 is also rumored to arrive soon, and there's an Apple event scheduled for the next two weeks. Huawei will put out the Mate 30 on September 18th, if you can get it. It's the first major phone launch since the company was blacklisted. It will also be the first without Google apps and services. Just Android. The great irony of Huawei's blacklisting is that it ended up raising sales within China. Patriotism? Perhaps.

The phone is out now, in an inopportune time, with the new iPhone coming out in a few weeks, and Google's Pixl 4 coming soon. The Note 10+ has 12-hour battery life, and a three-lens camera - Telephoto, Medium, and very wide angle. It also has a lidar camera called "Time of Flight" that bounces radar off it to create a 3D model or image.

What makes the Note 10 more interesting is the small stylus to write up notes with. You can even create the notes with the phone turned off. And it does a great job with handwriting recognition. It's almost flawless.

There's also something called Samsung Desk, which turns the Note into a desktop computer that can connect to a monitor, mouse and keyboard. Leo says that's intriguing, but must people will likely not use it. One benefit is that you can connect it to your Windows computer and Mac (though it doens't work all that well) and it will act as a hard drive device or second screen. It's interesting.